Theme parks Germany, Germany with kids, Germany travel

Theme parks in Bavaria are always a good excuse for an unforgettable stop on the roadtrip around Germany. After all, Germany is well known for some great ones. 

Best theme parks in Bavaria

1. Märchenwald Isartal (The Fairy-tale land)

The Märchenwald Isartal is mostly appropriate only for little kids, but there are some attractions, which also kids from 7-9 years will enjoy. You will walk around the park passing display windows where different fairy-tales are presented. You can even listen to fairy-tale stories in English and of course German.

Märchenwald Isartal has one space for toddlers as well, as they mostly cannot use the different train rides, slides, carousels… There’s even a small adrenalin park, which put a shine on me too.

The park is enjoyable also during the hot summer days as it is located in the middle of a forest, providing great shades.

Coordinates: 47°54’33.9″N 11°26’19.1″E (The Märchenwald Isartal is only 40 kilometers away from Munich)

2. Ravensburger Spieleland (The play land)

I am sure you have already heard for puzzles or maybe some other table-plays from Ravensburger brand. The Ravensburger Spieleland Park is a mixture of attractions for toddlers and older kids. There are even some attractions, which adults will enjoy, but we would not recommend a visit to the park without kids.

Out of typical train and boat rides, carousels and slides, there’s also a big play-ground area where kids will enjoy playing with water and sand. Don’t even forget to bring your swimming-suit as you can enjoy some freshening up at different areas, while passing all these fun attractions.

Kids will for sure like the car-driving school, where they can get their driving license or a garage, where they learn how to change tires on the car. A nice area is also a farm area, where kids become little farmers with driving a tractor and by visiting the real farm animals.

Ravensburger Spieleland would not be the right one without the main thing – puzzles. You can find a pretty big shady area with different levels of puzzles (also 3D), which you can borrow and construct.

Coordinates: 47°42’33.5″N 9°35’43.0″E

3. LEGOLAND Germany

I bet Lego bricks don’t need any special introduction. I adored them when I was a kid and making a stop at LEGOLAND was something I just could not left out when traveling around Bavaria. After all, seeing 56 million Legos at one place is absolutely amazing.

No matter if you are enjoying a train ride, carousal, rollercoaster, or a visit to a pyramid, police station, pirate’s boat, doing a safari ride, canoeing… everything is made out of Legos – or at least the look is like everything would be made out of Legos.

A great thing about LEGOLAND is, you can also visit the theme park without kids and you will not look silly at all. Lots of attractions are great to enjoy even being an adult. Well, the whole LEGOLAND is more or less appropriate for bigger kids, as almost all attractions have height limitation to 90 or even 120 cm.Luckily there’s also a nice looking toddlers (Duplo) area with small slides, houses, water, so bring your swimming suit to really enjoy this place.

Coordinates: 48°25’24.4″N 10°17’43.3″E

4. Playmobil Fun park

The Playmobil Fun park is one of the rare theme parks that is open all year round. It’s large indoor playing area is perfect on a rainy or snowy day. Nevertheless, to enjoy the Playmobil Fun park to the fullest, we’d definitely recommend you to visit it when the weather is also good to play outside.

Playmobil Fun Park is great for the little ones, as its attractions are good for children aged 3 and more. Nevertheless, our Ren, with only 16 months, still enjoyed a lot there. He put a shine on different figures and sandbox where full of toys were waiting for him.

We will for sure need to come back, when he gets a bit older as he’d love the medieval castle with climbing wall, pirate ship, gold mine…You can read more about the Playmobil Fun park here.

Playmobil Fun parks is one of the best things to do in Nuremberg with kids and the city is a great base for it too. You can reach the park in 30 minutes by car, what makes it a perfect family destination for a half day trip.

Coordinates: 49°25’47.6” / N10°56’12.5”

5. Sky Walk Allgäu

We loved this place and that is not only because Sky Walks are becoming more and more popular these days. Walking along the wooden path, which is set 40 meters above the ground, is beautiful.

The views on treetops and surrounding hills will inspire you in such way you won’t really be able to leave the place.

There’s even a special area, where the wooden floors are exchanged for a more adrenalin feel – you will need to climb over the interlaced net – kids will enjoy this for sure as well.

Underneath the Sky Walk Allgäu is also a great play-ground area for kids with the tube slide, obstacle course, adventure playground, barefoot trail, discovery stations in the woods. A stop there is a great family fun for sure.

Coordinates for the parking area: 47°33’47.4″N 9°49’57.3″E

6. The Augsburg’s ZOO

The Zoos may not be the perfect example of the theme parks, but nevertheless, we can also place them into the same category.

The capital of Bavaria – Munich, has amazing ZOO, but we have visited the smaller one in Augsburg, which is a nice diversification when visiting Augsburg with kids.

There is also a nice outdoor playing area, which kids will enjoy for sure.

Coordinates for the parking area: 48°20’56.2″N 10°54’58.0″E

7. Cavalluna Park

On the outskirts of Munich, Bavarian capital, lies a newly opened Cavalluna theme park. It is not an ordinary theme park, but specialized in horses, what makes it perfect for everyone interested in this elegant animals.

There are two nice play grounds in Cavalluna park (one also in shape of a Troyan horse), but most importantly and eye catching is its daily program, which changes every day due to weather, animal needs or trainings. The whole Cavalluna parks has many interactive stations – you can observe trainings or you can roll up your sleeves and groom a horse in their special horse-spa. Kids will love it!

Apart from a cinema, where kids can listen to a story, a cute thing to do is also cuddling with ponies and donkeys at their farm. You can even visit University and learn more about horses and ponies. At the end your kids can get a diploma and become Doctors for Horses.

Cavalluna park is a new attraction of long established company, dealing with horse shows. Their shows can be seen all around Europe and get more than 500.000 spectators yearly. In the middle of the Cavalluna park stands a big pavilion, where also these horse shows take place. The theater can welcome up to 1.700 visitors. Together with the Cavalluna park, this is a great way to learn more about daily life of horses, which shine in the shows and finding out how much effort is put into their trainings and well-being.

You can find Cavalluna Park next to the Allianz Arena, so it is easily to visit both, when you are looking for things to do in Munich

Coordinates: 48°12’37.6”N / 11°37’09.5”E

8. Salt mine  – Salzbergwerk Berchtesgaden

The salt mine Salzbergwerk Berchtesgaden is not really a typical theme park, but because it is one of the coolest experiences for the whole family, when you are visiting Bavaria in Germany, we decided to put it on the list anyway.

The Salzbergwerk Berchtesgaden is the oldest active salt mine in Germany. A small piece of it is re-done for visitors, where you can learn more about salt mining throughout the 500-year-old history. The Salzbergwerk Berchtesgaden was established in 1517. We really liked the fact that a tour into the salt mine is without any age restrictions, what not many attractions like this can offer. Even if you are visiting the salt mine with a baby, it is completely safe and possible.

The adventure already starts before entering the mine – you will first dress up in special clothes and be sited on the train, which will drive you 650 meters deep into the mountain. The tour is 1 hour long and even though everything was done really nice, we (especially our little traveller) put a shine on two special miner’s slides and a raft, which took us over the mirror lake, 130 meters below surface.

Our 2,5-year-old explorer would be sliding and driving by the train forever. Taking photos or filming in the salt mine is not allowed, so we were really happy we could take home (not for free though) 2 photos as a souvenir on this great family fun.

Coordinates: 47°38’21.6N / 13°00’56.7E (If you will be visiting the Salzbergwerk Berchtesgaden during a bad weather, prepare yourself for some crowds)

9. Margarete Steiff Museum

If you will be traveling to Germany with kids, who are big fans of teddy bears and other stuffed animals, you just have to stop at the Steiff Museum. It is located in a town Giengen an der Brenz, on the border with Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg – half way from Augsburg and Stuttgart.

Steiff Museum is a magical place, where the very first teddy bear in the world was born. Margarete Steiff started making stuffed animals in the middle of 19th century, but the famous Steiff bear, which could move arms and legs, was made in 1902.

In 2005, on the 125th anniversary of the Margarete Steiff company, the museum was opened. Now 2000 Steiff stuffed toys are on display and kids can run around them in two-storeys museum, which spread over 2400m2.

We really enjoyed the animation story at the beginning, which showed us how everything begun and how the teddy bear was made. After that we could explore the museum by ourselves, walk through special zoo with stuffed animals in original sizes and enjoyed the world’s largest plush slide in shape of 15 meters long snake.

If you are traveling with kids or a collector of teddy bears, you for sure will enjoy the Steiff museum a lot. And if you want to give your kids one of a kind experience, make sure to book teddy bear workshop in advance, where your kids will be able to make their own stuffed animal (teddy bear, frog, rabbit, pig, sheep).

Coordinates: 48°37’19.3”N / 10°14’28.2”E (To avoid the crowds, visit the museum when the weather is nice)

10. Freizeitpark Ruhpolding

Not far from the Chiemsee Lake lies a really nice theme park, perfect for younger kids. We were there with Ren, our 3,5 year old son and he was really impressed over it. He could use almost all the attractions – there are around 60 in total. I would say the Freizeitpark Ruhpolding is ideal for kids from 3 to 12 years.

A walk along the fairy tale houses, numerous slides (including water slides), the mine, mini train, roller coaster, cars and many other interesting things to do, will for sure make your road trip around Germany with kids even more fun and unforgettable. Not to mention the theme park Ruhpolding is a good option in bad weather too, as most of the attractions are under the roof.

Coordinates: 47°44’25.8″N 12°36’45.1″E

11. Hans – Peter Porsche Traumwerk

We really enjoy surprises while we travel and if it was not for the bad weather, we might never found a true hidden gem. The Porsche – Hans Porsche Traumwerk, set in a village of Anger is a sort of dream world for young and old. This beautiful organised museum is, among other things, home to a wonderful and privately owned collection of old toys, cars and model railroads. I am sure you will be impressed over the modell railway, with its 1,3 kilometers of railroads too, which covers more than 500 SQM. We could hardly convinced our son we have to leave the place.

The museum, which spreads on 32.000 SQM has its own restaurant / cafe too and if the weather is nice there is even a huge playing area for kids, including the mini railway, which kids can take a ride on. This dream world is just few kilometres away from the Austrian-Germany border, if you cross it near Salzburg.

Coordinates:  47°47’29.1″N 12°52’09.9″E

No matter which theme park in Bavaria, Germany you decide to visit, all have attractions for kids and with that also full range of places to grab lunch or a quick snack. If you want to provide your kids with some great and unforgettable family fun, theme parks are definitely the place to be.

*Travel tip – the best time to visit the outdoor theme parks in Bavaria to avoid the crowds are spring and autumn months. It also helps to avoid visiting during weekends and holidays.